Galaxy Note 3

[Dr McKay]

What's all this surfacing about the S4 having a terrible camera? This is new to me. I thought it had a great camera when I had it. The note 3 has the same camera correct?

I think I'm going to take the plunge and get one, fingers crossed Cyanogenmod hits it eventually, as the British Note 3 is the snapdragon version I hear its supposed to be more CM friendly than the Exynos variant.

 

[F123D]

The pen is still a big gimmick. Whos going to take out the pen, open the window and handwrite someones name, number or email?

Umm.. what exactly are they supposed to do with the pen?

Oh well, I'll see what happens with the Note 4.

Spoiler.. expect people to pull out the pen and write things with it.

At least Apple re-worked their entire OS and gave it a complete overhaul.

Clearly the Note series isn't for you but glad you decided to make it about how great apple and iOS is. Even though 90% of this "complete overhaul" were just cosmetic changes.

 

[The Game 161]

Plenty use the pen.. I use it all the time.

What a fail of a post. You like Apple and IOS? Cool, enjoy that.

You must have a faulty device ken.. Because mine has zero lag.

 

[rhinosrcool]

The pen is still a big gimmick. Whos going to take out the pen, open the window and handwrite someones name, number or email? Its also not very accurate rendering handwriting to text either as it got several things wrong and his writing wasnt that bad.

Nonsense! Currently, I have the original Note. The s pen is one of the things that got this thing started. If it was a gimmick, the Note 2 wouldn't have been so successful. Even though I love the s pen on my Note, it will be even more satisfying using it on the Note 3.

 

[Borealis]

Yeah, fully agree, the S-pen is really cool and useful. I've already started using it within a day of getting the GN3.

After a very long time, I actually wrote several letters today
Using the S-pen to compose emails in Gmail is just awesome...the handwriting recognition is darn good (I also have decently legible handwriting anyway) and I foresee myself using the S-pen to compose texts and emails now. It's way more natural and personal to write than to peck away at a keyboard.

I can jot down notes in meetings quickly with the S-Note or Papyrus (a better app IMO), and even write comments on pdf files! The Sketchbook app (by Autodesk) that comes with the GN3 also appears to be very powerful...merely played around with it for a few minutes and it's very impressive.

For me, the Note3 is a productivity and entertainment powerhouse: the screen size, S-pen, performance, connectivity, audio-video codecs, and many other features all help to set up my workflow pretty much the way I want it. Without the S-pen it would be just another large screen superdroid; it's the excellent integration of the S-pen that sets it apart from the others IMO.

I don't see myself going back to any non-Note device in the near future, simply because of the pen-input and native note-taking features of the GN3.

I also don't see the point in nitpicking the features and comparing the GN3 (or GN2 for that matter) with the iphones. The Notes are in a class above the Galaxy S and iphone category; they have no direct competition at the moment from any other manufacturer. Compare the ip5S with the GS4, but it's silly to compare it with the GN3.

 

[Borealis]

Here are some quick and dirty camera test shots. Some are HDR, some are just in auto mode. All straight out of the camera, and untouched in any way. These are not 'artistic' shots, just random test shots that contain areas of differing brightness.

The camera looks fine to me. The fact that the HDR mode actually exposes decently was a shock to me...I thought it would be a gimmick.


Click on the thumbnail image to go to the page for the full sized image.

1)


2) Non-HDR


3) HDR


4) Non-HDR


5) HDR


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6) Non-HDR


7) HDR



8)Non-HDR


9)HDR

 

[The Game 161]

Looks good to me

 

[Borealis]

10)


11)


12)


13) Some art exhibit indoors. Not very well-lit, and my hands were a bit shaky too from hunger and a lack of coffee lol.


14)


15)


All right, I am done

 

[Cnasty]

Awesome review just in a few hours ago from my favorite tech reviewer of all time, DetroitBORG. Enjoy!

YouTube: video

Thanks for posting this. One of my favorite reviewers of tech as well with Marques Brownlee.

Ready for this phone already!!!

 

[Shanghaichica]

Some pics taken with the

 

[Twixt]

To those who already bought Note 3 over last couple of days, is 64GB version already available?

 

[adder7712]

Looks good. The S4/Note 3 camera should shine in broad daylight.

 

[jamezr]

Here are some quick and dirty camera test shots. Some are HDR, some are just in auto mode. All straight out of the camera, and untouched in any way. These are not 'artistic' shots, just random test shots that contain areas of differing brightness.

The camera looks fine to me. The fact that the HDR mode actually exposes decently was a shock to me...I thought it would be a gimmick.


Click on the thumbnail image to go to the page for the full sized image.

1)
[url=http://i.imgur.com/aEoPItYl.jpg]Image[/URL]

2) Non-HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/lFktZfql.jpg]Image[/URL]

3) HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/Ti4nXS7l.jpg]Image[/URL]

4) Non-HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/NlcxkMel.jpg]Image[/URL]

5) HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/sNlsdnOl.jpg]Image[/URL]

----------

6) Non-HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/Rox5gIEl.jpg]Image[/URL]

7) HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/cGipVg5l.jpg]Image[/URL]


8)Non-HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/oZ3re0kl.jpg]Image[/URL]

9)HDR
[url=http://i.imgur.com/FdmfKial.jpg]Image[/URL]

Great shots! It looks like the camera is awesome!

 

[kenknotts]

Looks good. The S4/Note 3 camera should shine in broad daylight.

Any camera will perform well in broad daylight. The real test is how it performs indoors in lower light and how it deals with close ups. The shot of the 7 up can above is a good example. It's noisy (grainy) and it's very soft (not sharp). Disappointing. Would be interested to see how it looks taking a photo of people, especially with the flash.

 

[MRU]

Thanks for the photos Borealis. I ticked like

They look great to me, and as I suspect every bit as good as the S4.

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Any camera will perform well in broad daylight. The real test is how it performs indoors in lower light and how it deals with close ups. The shot of the 7 up can above is a good example. It's noisy (grainy) and it's very soft (not sharp). Disappointing. Would be interested to see how it looks taking a photo of people, especially with the flash.

Not entirely true, many cameras can over expose in daylight, many cameras struggle to take photos of my White Maltese dog in daylight for example often burning out as the white coat reflects the daylight so much. The S4 never had that problem, my HTC One and iPhone 5 did.

Also your definition of a "real test" is purely subjective. If a person like I for example shoot 99.9% of photos outdoors - what benefit does low light performance give me? None. Therefore it serves no purpose judging how good a camera is based on that alone, likewise the One has better lowlight performance, but if that basically boils down to it looks slightly less of a **** picture than another **** picture what good does it serve?

Seriously not sure where this hate for the S4 & Note 3 camera comes from, because whilst I could bicker and pick plenty of faults in Samsung's touchwiz and UI design choices / coherancy - the one thing that I could never take away the credit for is the generally excellent "smartphone" camera.

And for the record we have a $35,000 Hasselblad camera in the studio we use for portraits - so I do have first hand experience of some of the "best" hardware.

 

[The Game 161]

Happy with my screen time today

 

[Tones2]

Awesome review just in a few hours ago from my favorite tech reviewer of all time, DetroitBORG. Enjoy!

YouTube: video

Wow. After watching this, and except for S Voice (which sucks as bad as Siri does), how could anyone NOT get this phone, he he...

 

[kenknotts]

Thanks for the photos Borealis. I ticked like

They look great to me, and as I suspect every bit as good as the S4.

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Not entirely true, many cameras can over expose in daylight, many cameras struggle to take photos of my White Maltese dog in daylight for example often burning out as the white coat reflects the daylight so much. The S4 never had that problem, my HTC One and iPhone 5 did.

Also your definition of a "real test" is purely subjective. If a person like I for example shoot 99.9% of photos outdoors - what benefit does low light performance give me? None. Therefore it serves no purpose judging how good a camera is based on that alone, likewise the One has better lowlight performance, but if that basically boils down to it looks slightly less of a **** picture than another **** picture what good does it serve?

Seriously not sure where this hate for the S4 & Note 3 camera comes from, because whilst I could bicker and pick plenty of faults in Samsung's touchwiz and UI design choices / coherancy - the one thing that I could never take away the credit for is the generally excellent "smartphone" camera.

And for the record we have a $35,000 Hasselblad camera in the studio we use for portraits - so I do have first hand experience of some of the "best" hardware.

I don't hate the S4 camera, I used it since launch day and took some good pics with it. However, using it again yesterday alongside my 5s, the differences were quite dramatic. The 5s did everything much better including video. The S4 shots didn't look bad but they weren't nearly as good. My friend finally made me stop taking pics with her S4 and had me take them all on my 5s and then text them to her because they were coming out that much better.

 

[MRU]

I don't hate the S4 camera, I used it since launch day and took some good pics with it. However, using it again yesterday alongside my 5s, the differences were quite dramatic. The 5s did everything much better including video. The S4 shots didn't look bad but they weren't nearly as good. My friend finally made me stop taking pics with her S4 and had me take them all on my 5s and then text them to her because they were coming out that much better.

OK thanks for the explanation. I have no doubt the 5S has a great camera so I fully accept your opinion, and won't argue contrary because I have no first hand experience of it on the 5S

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Re: my climb today - terrible weather so not many photos.

However here's one from the start before the fog enveloped everything.

 

[2298754]

Any update on the AT&T orders?

I'm getting very impatient. I said to myself that I will actually keep the S4 for a few months, but...

 

[Oohara]

I don't hate the S4 camera, I used it since launch day and took some good pics with it. However, using it again yesterday alongside my 5s, the differences were quite dramatic. The 5s did everything much better including video. The S4 shots didn't look bad but they weren't nearly as good. My friend finally made me stop taking pics with her S4 and had me take them all on my 5s and then text them to her because they were coming out that much better.

Would you mind posting a few examples for comparison?

 

[skratch77]

So you took pictures with your 5s and then compressed them and texted them to your friend while she stopped taking pictures with her gs4.

Am I the only one that is going to call bs on that and even if you did compressing the pictures to send SMS would defeat the purpose in the first place.

Tell your friend to go into the setting and set it to 13mp and HDR along with anti shake on.

She provably has the phone set to 3mp

Might also want to double check the lens is clean whole your at it.

 

[The Game 161]

So you took pictures with your 5s and then compressed them and texted them to your friend while she stopped taking pictures with her gs4.

Am I the only one that is going to call bs on that and even if you did compressing the pictures to send SMS would defeat the purpose in the first place.

Tell your friend to go into the setting and set it to 13mp and HDR along with anti shake on.

She provably has the phone set to 3mp

Might also want to double check the lens is clean whole your at it.

Ah

Just realised my settings was on 4128 x 2322 and 9.6m..changed it to 4128x 3096 which is 13m..and turned HDR on. Instead of auto..guessing that will help?

 

[MRU]

Ah

Just realised my settings was on 4128 x 2322 and 9.6m..changed it to 4128x 3096 which is 13m..and turned HDR on. Instead of auto..guessing that will help?

Hope you took the little bit of plastic off the camera too

 

[rillrill]

Ah

Just realised my settings was on 4128 x 2322 and 9.6m..changed it to 4128x 3096 which is 13m..and turned HDR on. Instead of auto..guessing that will help?

how do you think the note 3 fairs for a tablet replacement? i noticed you have an ipad and a sammy tab. do you see yrself using those less now that you have a more pocketable device?